System Monitor
The temperature macOS never shows you
Notchyreads your Mac's CPU temperature from the SMC and puts it on the notch — next to CPU, GPU, memory and network, in °C or °F.
A real sensor reading
The number comes from the hottest CPU sensor your Mac reports, not an estimate derived from load. If your machine doesn't report one, the row stays hidden.
Temperature in context
A hot Mac is only half the story. The same flyout shows CPU and GPU load, memory pressure and network throughput, so you can see what's causing the heat — the full system monitor is one hover away.
°C or °F, your call
One toggle in settings switches the unit everywhere the reading appears.
No extra menu bar icon
It lives in the notch, in an app that's already running — so monitoring temperature costs you no menu bar space and no second utility.
Everything Notchy does, for free
- Fluid Dynamic Island animations on the Mac notch
- Command palette (⌃⌥K) — every action one keystroke away
- Knock — double-tap a modifier key to open the notch
- AI usage tracker (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot)
- Detach any tab into a menu-bar popover
- Now Playing music controls (Apple Music & Spotify)
- Time-synced karaoke lyrics under the notch
- Mac clipboard history shelf (password-manager safe)
- Searchable clipboard — filter by text, file name, or OCR'd words
- On-device OCR — copy a screenshot, get its text (Apple Vision)
- Window snapping — drag a window to the notch to tile it
- App Launcher — pin apps to the notch, open with one tap
- Text snippets — TextExpander-style pastes from the ⌘K palette
- One-tap screen capture to clipboard + shelf
- Color eyedropper — sample any pixel, hex auto-copied
- System-wide mic mute for every meeting app at once
- Keystroke HUD for demos & screencasts (secure-input safe)
- Keyboard cleaning lock with countdown island (⌘⎋ unlocks)
- Menu-bar icon hiding — Bartender-style separator & chevron
- Live CPU / memory / network stats flyout
- Open GitHub PR count in the notch (Keychain-stored token)
- iPhone-style call island — Answer/Decline FaceTime on the notch
- Notch Terminal — real VT100/xterm shell in a PTY, its own tab
- Privacy Indicator — pill when any app's camera or mic goes live
- Caps Lock HUD — brief island on every toggle
- Full Charge island with adjustable threshold + low-battery sound
- Alt HUD styles — edge-pinned bar or circular gauge off the notch
- Audio-reactive Now Playing visualizer (real FFT of system audio)
- Custom closed-notch idle animation — drop in your own Lottie JSON
- Drag-and-drop file drop shelf — persists across relaunches
- Zip & unzip files right from the shelf
- Image converter (HEIC, PNG, JPEG, TIFF, PDF) + video → GIF
- Run Apple Shortcuts with one tap
- Screenshots auto-staged on the shelf, ready to drag
- Download finished alerts with Reveal in Finder
- USB drive mount island with one-tap Eject
- Apple Reminders quick capture & due list
- macOS Pomodoro notch timer & stopwatch — streaks + 7-day chart
- Resizable expanded panel (width & height, live preview)
- System HUDs (volume, brightness, battery)
- Audio output switcher (speakers, AirPods, monitor)
- AirPods connection manager & battery
- Magic Mouse, Keyboard & Trackpad battery + low-battery alerts
- Quick notes & Calendar widgets
- Camera Mirror (check your appearance)
- Keep Awake (caffeine toggle)
- Teleprompter (Cuely) for Zoom calls
- Focus-aware alerts & native haptic feedback
- Lock screen widgets & hide-the-notch mode
- 133 languages, fully localized
- Native SwiftUI, tuned for Apple Silicon
Mac CPU temperature — FAQ
How do I check CPU temperature on a Mac?
macOS doesn't expose it anywhere in the interface — not in Activity Monitor, not in System Settings. You need an app that reads the SMC directly. Notchy does that and shows the hottest CPU reading alongside CPU, GPU, memory and network usage.
Does it work on Apple Silicon?
Yes. The reading comes from the sensors your Mac already reports, on both Apple Silicon and Intel machines. If a particular Mac doesn't report a usable CPU sensor, the row simply doesn't appear rather than showing a made-up number.
Can I switch between Celsius and Fahrenheit?
Yes, it's a single toggle in settings. The reading follows whichever unit you pick everywhere it's shown.
What temperature is too hot for a MacBook?
Apple Silicon Macs run warm by design and throttle themselves long before anything is at risk, so a spike under sustained load is normal. What's worth watching is a machine that sits hot while idle — that usually points at a runaway process, which the CPU graph next to the temperature will name.
Is this a free iStat Menus alternative?
For temperature and the core system readings, yes — free, native, and without another permanent menu bar icon. iStat Menus goes deeper on per-sensor detail and history if that's what you need.